Monday, March 23, 2015

Thoughts from a 40-Something Mom to All the 30-Something Moms who are Freaking Out about Internet Oversharing

Thou shalt not write about thy children online.Photo courtesy of iceviking, www.freeimages.com

In
1994, when I was a senior in college, I searched the World Wide Web for the
very first time. I still remember that Mosaic query: surfing conditions in Australia,
a half a world away from Provo, Utah. The answer? A full report, including
weather forecast, tides, and wave conditions. In that moment, I felt like I had
won the Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka’s Knowledge Factory. This will change everything, I thought. I never once thought about
trolls.

In
1994, you were ten years old. No one was thinking about what the Internet would
mean for ten year olds.

In 1996,
when I was a graduate student at UCLA, teaching assistants faced a daunting new
requirement: virtual office hours. The
concept was so mysterious and misunderstood that some of my fellow students
actually organized labor protests. But as a woman expecting her first child, I
saw instead the potential to work from anywhere, which at the time seemed like
an overwhelming positive. Maybe, with the
help of a computer and a dial up modem, a mother could work from home, I
thought.

In
1996, you were 12 years old. You were probably one of the 75 percent of public
school students who were using the Internet for middle school research projects
that year. In 20 years, working from
home—or anywhere else, for that matter—would be your normal.

In
2001, I was a young work-at-home mother playing around with coding basic html
websites, and a fleeting thought passed my mind: what if I could create a
website to share pictures and updates of my two beautiful boys with our family
and friends? A book editing project distracted me, though the idea never quite
left my mind.

In
2001, you were 18 and headed to a very different college experience than the
one I had a decade earlier. In fact, the
American Psychiatric Association reported that in 2001, one in ten college
students was addicted to the Internet. A researcher explained the
findings as follows: "The
sense of security afforded by the anonymity of the Internet provides some
students with less risky opportunities for developing virtual
relationships." (Ah, that sense of
anonymity!)

In 2007,
I joined Facebook so I could play Scrabble online with my siblings. I quickly
realized that it was the perfect platform for that shelved idea of sharing pictures
and updates of my now four beautiful children. I never once thought about
privacy. Why would anyone other than people I knew and trusted want to look at
my Facebook page? I also created my blog, The Anarchist Soccer Mom. I loved the
idea of an anonymous forum where I could be candid about the challenges (and
joys) of parenting—and those challenges were becoming increasingly hard as my
second son failed to respond to treatments for his erratic behaviors, which we
would learn (much later) were caused by his bipolar disorder. Did I worry that
people would know it was me? Of course not. No one—then or now—reads your blog.

In
2007, you were 24, transitioning to an adulthood that was shaped by unlimited
access to all kinds of information. Maybe you had just bought your first
iPhone, a device that transformed not only the way we access and share
information, but refashioned our entire culture. Your adult life was shaped by
a knowledge of this “revolutionary and magical” tool—the all-knowing computer in your purse. Before you had children, you had
time to experience both the wonder and the terror of this new constant
connection to all of humanity’s combined wisdom and ignorance.

40-something
moms like me did not have that same luxury. Our children were young—or just
being born—when all this wonderful and terrifying new technology was unleashed
on us. In the 1980s, parents proudly carried wallet-sized print photos of their
children. In the late 2000s, we started posting pictures, by the thousands, of
our children online. We sincerely thought that the audience for those Facebook
albums was the same as the audience for our parents’ wallet photos.

In
2012, when you had young children of your own, you knew better. You spent your
early adult years watching people do stupid things and go viral. You
experienced, either personally or vicariously, the extreme public shaming that
only the Internet can facilitate. And you didn’t want your children to
experience that level of public shame, with good reason. Internet bullying is
awful, pervasive, and sometimes even fatal.

So you
created a new word to describe your criticism of the 40-something moms who were
constantly posting about their kids: oversharenting. And you created a new
commandment of mommy righteousness: “Thou shalt not write about thy children
online.”

In
2012, in a gut wrenching intersection of a personal tragedy with a very public
one, I shared a painful story about my own family on my anonymous blog. Then,
after a lengthy conversation with a close personal friend, I decided to allow
him to republish it, with my name attached. My revelation that my son had
mental illness and we didn’t know how to help him has become Exhibit A in more
than one essay about parental oversharing. For example, in 2013, Phoebe Maltz Bovy
described my essay, “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” as “the most outlandish version of a popular genre: parental
overshare.”

In the
aftermath of my viral blog post, I thought long and hard about my children’s
privacy, and I made some pretty significant changes to the way I post things
about my children on social media. I don’t ever use their names now. I think
carefully about the content of any message concerning them, and I use privacy settings to limit access to people who can see what I post. Although I love
Instagram, I try to make sure my kids’ faces are not visible in the pictures I share there.

But I
absolutely refuse to stop talking about my family’s struggles with mental
illness. In the case of mental illness, or any illness, advocacy trumps
privacy.

Every parent
writer struggles with how to talk about his or her children. Emily Bazelon
presciently took on this topic in 2008. Wondering whether her own revelations
about her children’s lives were violating their privacy, she asked, “Should we all close our laptops once
our kids learn to talk?”

In response to her question, one honest blogger
told her that he “mostly saw my hand-wringing over the ethics of writing about
my kids as the result of ‘the same narcissistic impulse that causes us to write
about our families in the first place. Because most people don't care what we
write.’”

This is
a fact. If you write about your kids, or post their adorable pictures on social
media, most people won’t read what you write. And your intended
audience—real-life friends and family—are likely to appreciate your posts and
feel more connected to you. I don’t see how that’s any more harmful to your
children and their privacy than an annual holiday letter, and those have been
around for a while.

But I
also understand the privacy advocates who worry about what happens if people do
in fact read what you write. Quite a few people read what I wrote about my son
on December 14, 2012. More than four million, in fact.

My chief complaint with people who use me as an example of
oversharing is quite simple: they all contend that what I wrote about my son
was damaging to him or his future.

And that’s not even close to true.

I wish
that Abby Phillip of the Washington Post had actually reached out to me to
discuss the consequences of what she calls “oversharenting” when she quoted my
blog. In our case, sharing our story
had more positive than negative outcomes. Because I spoke up, my son got
effective treatment and is now back in a mainstream school with friends who are
totally fine with his bipolar disorder. In fact, they—and I—admire his
self-advocacy and think he is brave for speaking out and sharing his story. We
were also able to connect to an amazing community of mental health advocates.
No one has ever approached us in the grocery store and said, “I know who you
are. You’re that mom and kid who talked about mental illness after Newtown. You
are horrible people.” It doesn’t work that way.

Google “oversharing child cancer” and see if you
can find criticism of mothers who post about their children who have cancer on
social media. (I couldn’t). Why was my alleged oversharing potentially damaging
to my son’s future? Because we should be ashamed of his illness? Or because the
writers who criticize me are ignorant about mental illness?

Would you like to know what is actually damaging
to my son and his future?

The
appalling lack of access to mental health care for children and families.

Our
society’s decision to send children and adults with mental illness to prison.

The
stigma we perpetuate when we respond sympathetically to a mom who
writes about her child’s struggle with cancer but cry “oversharing!”
when a mom talks about her child’s struggle with bipolar disorder.

These
struggles—cancer and mental illness—are only different because the second mom
will have tremendous difficulty both in getting people to care and in getting
access to care.

Even
Hanna Rosin, one of my most vocal critics after my blog post went viral,
finally got this last point after she researched and wrote a moving piece on Kelli Stapleton, who will spend ten years in prison after a failed attempt to kill
herself and her then 12-year old daughter, who has autism.

When I
suggested on Twitter that Rosin’s thinking had evolved on the subject of
parents who advocate for their children with mental illness, she responded, “For
sure. I really didn’t get it until I read your book and talked to Kelli.”

Now, in
2015, I share the most important and relevant portions of my family’s story,
with my children’s permission, in every place I can.

And
this is my heartfelt request to you, 30-something moms: keep sharing,
especially if your child has an illness that can benefit from awareness and
advocacy. Parents of special needs children actually rely on Facebook for
much-needed support. You never know when sharing
your experiences might change someone's heart and help to heal a mind.

7 comments:

I agree well said. My son also has bipolar disorder and regardless of whether or not I talk about it, the fact that he has it will affect his future. But because I spoke up for him and sought treatment and continued to seek for the right treatment he's stable and doing very well. Treatment is what counts for a good future.

Liza, you should speak with a few "oversharenting" victims before you try to convince the public that it's not an abuse of a parent's power to write about their child's private life on a forum that the world can access all day, every day and that can never be erased. You could begin with your son. In the People Magazine interview you and “Michael” did last year, he said “I wish that my mom hadn’t come forward. It sure has caused a lot of pain and suffering for our family.”

Of course, "A," you (intentionally?) left out a few of his words. The online article has these quotes: "I really wish my mom hadn't come forward," he admits. "I also really wish others would because it sure has caused a lot of pain and suffering for our family, but I'm pretty sure it has helped a lot of others."

Hello Mrs. Long, my name is Charlotte Klass and I am a Child and Family studies major at Syracuse University. I am currently working on a research paper discussing the need for better mental health care in America. We read one of your articles in my class and it inspired me. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about your experience as a mother of a child struggling with mental illness, and what changes you hope to see in the mental health system.

I don't usually comment--but I do want to clarify something for zinnias:1. We both regretted it. The immediate consequences were horrible for both of us. Getting beat up on the Internet on a daily basis is not a lot of fun. Long-term, though, we've both decided that advocacy is important. 2. My son now reviews and approves everything-including this-that I write about him.

About Me

Liza Long, aka the Anarchist Soccer Mom, is a writer, educator, mental health advocate, and mother of four children. She loves her Steinway, her husband, her kids,and her day job, not necessarily in that order. Her book "The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness" from Hudson Street Press is available in bookstores and online. The views expressed on this blog are entirely her own and in no way reflect the views of her employer (or anyone else, for that matter).